Sigh. Season 7 is such a big "what might've been."

watched "Slouching Toward Bethleham" today on TNT. Man, I loooooove Wes/Lilah. Love them love them love them.

Love.

Them!

and the imbalance between good and evil that Season 7 blamed for provoking it.

I wish that they'd done more with the Eye of Botox. It was a big ol' red herring, but I wish they'd used it. But, again, what might have been.

Scott and I watched Prophecy Girl to finish off BtVS Season 1, yesterday afternoon. He's down with the same virus that felled me for much of last week (that I'm just starting to shake now, I think), so he's home. Buffy still kills me when she comes upon Angel and Giles discussing Aurelius's prophecy. Read me the signs. Tell me my fortune! ... I'm sixteen and I don't want to die. Oof. The power walk (after Xander has brought her back to life and she, he and Angel are off to find the Master) to the title track is a little cheesy, but I enjoy the cheese here, mostly.

If it hadn't already been done in Season 7 (at least for the First Evil), I think I would create a Live Journal or blog for Buffy. It would start back in season 1, probably after the episode Angel. Buffy would abandon her paper diary, on the off-chance that Angel was covering, and actually had read her paper diary, and because she finally realized she was leaving it too vulnerable to Joyce. Of course, I don't think Buffy had a PC back then, but we can pretend it was in what eventually became Dawn's room. I don't know when LJ started up, but I don't really care.

We're watching in order. Last night, we watched When She Was Bad. I love that episode. I love how Buffy's issues keep her from seeing the trap, and how that's perfectly echoed/bookended by the mistake she will make in Becoming, when she will again leave the crew in the library, to meet Angelus in the cemetery, because she assumes the trap is for her, not her loved ones. I love how Angel was present for the first instance of bait-but-no-hook in WSWB, and how as Angelus, he used it on her, and rubbed it in her face, in Becoming. I love that when Buffy is afraid, she gets bitchy. Is she awful to pretty much everyone? Yep. I love how she acts out in this one. It rings so true. Crying into Angel's chest after smashing the Master's skeleton is the perfect pay-off for her bad behavior.

This episode made me miss the Bronze. I wasn't a Bronzer when it aired, but Bronzers had a sort of cyber-reality way of talking about the Bronze as if it were our nightclub. We had a having-issues skeleton in the closet. Every once in a while, a Bronzer would come in and take a whack at it, after a bad day.

I'm about to commit some sort of heresy, I'm sure, but I never really liked Jenny Calendar all that much. Sure, she's beautiful. I'm sure Robia is probably a lovely person. This is just about the character. One of Jenny's only redeeming features in my eyes was her clearly good taste in men. But I thought her wise-ass flirtation with Giles came off as belittlement, as much as anything else. I didn't like how she was with the students, either. I am trying to remember if I will like her more as this season wears on. But I do know I always sort of enjoy it when Angelus snaps her neck.

I was thinking last night, do you suppose Joss didn't have Buffy kill the Annoying One, because he didn't want that image on screen (superhero kills kid)? That kid needed killing, not just because he was annoying (although mostly, yes, because he was annoying), but also because he was evil and managed to attract all these other vamps to do his bidding, yet his kill is saved for Spike.

We skipped over Some Assembly Required. Scott wasn't into watching that one, and it's not one of my favorites, either. It's been long enough since I've watched it though, that I might give it a whirl today. Some of the episodes that have stories I didn't much care for, also managed to have some of my favorite lines, or favorite moments, in other ways. I can't remember if SAR is one of those, or not.

We put on School Hard, but then both fell asleep, so we'll likely rewatch that, tonight. I didn't get far enough into it to comment, now.

was thinking last night, do you suppose Joss didn't have Buffy kill the Annoying One, because he didn't want that image on screen (superhero kills kid)?

I think it was more to show that Spike, having hopelessly fucked up his attempt on Buffy, is still a badass.

Cindy, there was a Buffy journal back in S7. But I would really, really love to read your take on the idea.

Thanks, Lyra. I thought there was a Buffy one too, but it was the FE's that stuck with me. Ugh. That journal style is killing me. It's pretty, but I hate when the text is written right on top of the wall paper. It makes it it too hard to read.

Hey, maybe we Buffistas could do a Buffy journal by episode, as a group project.

I was thinking last night, do you suppose Joss didn't have Buffy kill the Annoying One, because he didn't want that image on screen (superhero kills kid)? That kid needed killing, not just because he was annoying (although mostly, yes, because he was annoying), but also because he was evil and managed to attract all these other vamps to do his bidding, yet his kill is saved for Spike.

If I recall correctly, there was some issue with having a child as the Annointed One. There may have been the problem of having such evil committed by a child. Or it may have been that Joss didn't want to see his heroine beating up on a child. Or it just may have been that the kid was short and it was hard to set up shots that didn't include just the top of his head. I tend to think it was that Joss didn't want Buffy beating up a kid, but that may just be my read.

We skipped over Some Assembly Required.

Heathens! When Buffy & Xander walk in on Giles practicing asking Jenny out -- One of the best library banter scenes ever.

If I recall correctly, there was some issue with having a child as the Annointed One. There may have been the problem of having such evil committed by a child. Or it may have been that Joss didn't want to see his heroine beating up on a child. Or it just may have been that the kid was short and it was hard to set up shots that didn't include just the top of his head. I tend to think it was that Joss didn't want Buffy beating up a kid, but that may just be my read.

There's also the practical concern of a child vampire on a long-running series and the reality of the on-set of adolesence. Given how much Angel and Spike changed over the years, a kid was going to be a massive continuity issue. Even just a season might be too long.